Daddy?
by musing11
Summary: A little insight into what Peter was thinking during the information exchange scene in Episode 1x07 "In Which We Meet Mr. Jones". Mild Peter/Olivia. Mild swearing. One-shot.


_Wait just one fucking second now._

"What is that?" Now, I know what it is, and why she's holding it, but I'm dearly hoping that for once in my adult life, I'm wrong.

Stopping my heart, in an old chair, in a basement lab, with no one but my mentally deficient father to help. Not one of my better moments _(though not one of the worst)_. There's Astrid too, but I doubt the poor girl went to medical school on top of linguistics and cryptology.

Like any _sane _person, I'm questioning my motivation. This is a dreadful idea and the whole situation could end up horribly, terribly wrong. One possible future: I end up like Olivia. I have deduced that she still sees John, dead John; he's still in her goddamn head. I don't need some random guy floating around, thank you very much. The awkwardness of one of us having someone else in their head is plenty right now.

The questioning is, of course, ultimately futile, because emotionally, within my metaphorical heart, whatever you want to call it, I already know the answer. I need to do this for her. I just have to get the answer to this question, or code phrase, whatever it is, get this headset off me and get this guy out of my head – then get absolutely pissed out of my mind.

The more important question then becomes:

_How the hell did I end up here? _

I can tell you the steps, the logical pattern – cause and effect...all that bullshit. But I don't understand how my life changed so drastically in just a few short weeks. I was in Iraq, fresh out of a crazy year in Amsterdam, which had been prefaced by a hell of few years in Vegas – _but let's not get into that._

In Iraq. Happily_(ish)_ minding my own business, trying to ignore my addictions and commitment issues, maybe get a real job; then suddenly I'm on a plane, and back to Boston of all places, with a pretty girl and my _dear_ father, whose self-medicating tendencies are making it painfully difficult for me to mind my own.

I'm distracted by the realization that the needle's in now, and Walter's telling me it's just a sedative laced with some kind of inhibitor. That coming from a man who puts people on acid and then shoves them in tanks that are a few decades old...suffice it to say I'm not inclined to believe him. It's probably a hallucinogenic of some kind mixed with whatever's left over from his morning dose. I can feel it sliding down my arm – and I still can't tell exactly what it is because I really haven't had enough experience with this brand of fun. Walter's thing was always the drugs; I stuck to a more traditional diet of whiskey and whiskey.

I try to communicate to Astrid that although I am completely confident in her abilities as an assistant, and that she's doing a great job with Walter, we really should get someone with a bit more experience in here, as I'm not comfortable with this whole situation – maybe it would be better if Olivia were here; when suddenly...it doesn't matter in the slightest.

Warm. Really warm.

But not hot. _Not too hot and not too cold. _

And light. I can see everything and nothing – at the same time if I want, too.

_Why haven't I done this sooner?_ I sink into the chair and feel everything...texture, colour, understanding is irrelevant and yet implicit in all things. My life is perfectly optional.

Calm seeps in around me and for the first time in a long time, I relax. There's no need to run for some reason, and I sink in deeper at this thought.

Then all of the sudden, someone's yelling in my face and slapping me around.

I'm comfortable where I am, but they're being rather insistent...and for the sake of later peace, I open my eyes. It's my dad, looking down at me with an odd expression on his face. I suddenly realize I don't quite know where I am and what I'm doing, and I reach out to him in question.

"Daddy?" He smiles, and I must've done the right thing, although I can't quite remember what it was I was supposed to be doing in the first place...He's gone then and I close my eyes and sink back into the chair, for once at peace.

_Damn._

I know he's just shocked me, and the electricity coursing through my body seems to kick-start my brain back into focus. I can feel the current and it fucking hurts but it's different and I can start to...see?...no, there is no verb for what I'm getting from Loeb.

But it's not enough and then he's shocking me again.

_Why?_

_Why would a father do this to his son? _He's supposed to love me and take care of me, and instead he's shocking me with a goddamn car battery. No, that was before; this is a generator of some kind I think. I'm still trying to remember the car battery experiments, all I'm getting are flashes; where, when, and why are still a mystery.

The crushing pain of electricity cuts me out of my line of questions, and somewhat ironically takes my mind off of it completely. Shock, the body's natural response to an overdose of stimuli (read: pain).

Olivia is waiting and she needs me to get something for her that's important, and if I do it she'll be happy and she might even smile...that's a good day when she smiles, I know that much right now.

Astrid is staring at me now, and while distracted by how truly nice she is and how beautiful Olivia looks when she's even a little bit happy – I abruptly know it and already it's gone.

"I need a pen and paper, and get this thing OFF of me!" I can't tell whether what I just said came out right, or if I even said anything at all. When someone hands me my request I assume I did manage to get it out, and then I'm writing as fast as I can. Somehow that isn't fast enough and then suddenly I'm finished and it makes no sense. Walter steps in and takes it from me, and in the few seconds of rest that action brings me, I feel my brain start to seep back into my own control.

I realize he's yelling at me about horizontal lines, and wonder why everyone is so damn loud in this place.

Then I see it, and the pen is mine.

Little Hill.

_Little Hill._

Astrid repeats it into the phone, and I hope it means something to Olivia and I hope it makes her smile. But I don't have a clue what any of this means, let alone Little Hill, and as I fall back into the chair, I try to comprehend what seem to be emerging as the eternal questions of my life:

_Why I had to go through all of that. Why my father would do that to me, why I let him in the first place, why I can't actually remember anything concrete until the age of twelve, and why that had never occurred to me until today. _


End file.
